Pre-K - 4th Grade

Elisabeth Irwin, our founder, believed that meaningful learning extends beyond the walls of the classroom. Throughout the year, students leave the school building to engage with the wider world. Within our four walls,even a short trip to the woodshop or tech lab offers an opportunity to explore new ways of thinking and learning. Students learn to get as close as possible to the source if you want to truly understand.

Special area classes give students the opportunity to develop skills in the arts, sciences, sports, and movement while encouraging creativity, curiosity, and hands-on exploration. Along the way, students are also strengthening essential skills such as literacy, mathematical thinking, organization, and collaboration.

Specialist teachers work closely with classroom teachers to connect their instruction to yearlong interdisciplinary studies, helping students experience learning as integrated, meaningful, and connected across disciplines.

Lower school students, from the first to the fourth grades, create art in the Lower School Art Studio, and Fours and kindergarten students work with the art teacher in their classrooms. Our young artists explore the basic materials of paint, clay, papier-mâché, and collage, and they draw, print, sew, weave, and build in three-dimensions. Initial questions focus on materials. “How do I make orange?” and “How can my clay animal have stronger legs?” lead students from a basic understanding to increasingly representational thinking, with questions such as “How can I draw myself, and my family?” and observational work asking “What do I see when I observe an important part of our city? How can I represent it on paper?” Throughout the years, children reflect on their artwork, discussing their goals and the challenges they face.
Students participate in the woodworking program beginning in first grade. They develop creativity, self-confidence, problem-solving skills, planning skills, and safety skills. A range of fine motor skills are created through the use of wood, fabric, glue, saws, hammers, and other hardware. Woodshop projects are often coordinated with classroom curricula. At other times, projects reflect experiences that exercise imagination and support motor development, such as carving, hammering, and sanding.

All Lower School students study Spanish beginning in the Fours. Students learn essential vocabulary through songs, games, and the arts. As they move into the upper elementary grades, students begin to read and write basic vocabulary through a variety of activities. Classes are taught primarily in Spanish.

As in other areas of LREI’s program - great science learners ask great questions. Children of all ages have a natural desire to investigate the world around them and to seek solutions to the mysteries they encounter. The lower school science program aims to nurture these dispositions by creating an environment that provides students with opportunities to actively explore and understand the natural world. The curriculum maintains a focus on inquiry, design, and investigations. Students use scientific tools to gather evidence, rely on data to formulate conclusions, and develop an understanding of scientific concepts through experiential learning. They examine the natural world, their connections to it, and explore how we can create a more sustainable future.

The early childhood music program is based on the Orff approach to learning, integrating singing, movement, instrumental play, body percussion, speech, poetry, and drama. The children play in ensembles of specially designed pitched and non-pitched percussion instruments, such as xylophones, glockenspiels, claves, and drums. Each lesson is designed to teach musical concepts and skills, and build from a simple theme or element into larger forms. Children learn a repertoire of age-appropriate songs that often relate directly to their classroom curriculum or to the larger community of LREI.

LREI’s library collection contains a large selection of engaging fiction and non-fiction texts for all reading levels. Spanning two spaces, one for our youngest students and another for the older students, our library program supports our growing readers and researchers, taking seriously our charge to create lifelong readers.
In collaboration with classroom teachers, second, third and fourth grade, students develop media literacy and research skills, focusing on determining reliable sources, considering multiple perspectives, gathering information through note taking then synthesizing their notes.

LREI’s physical education program is designed to support the growth of children’s movement skills and understanding of healthy bodies while encouraging creative collaboration and fair play. In addition to focusing on the skills that support sports readiness, the program provides children with the opportunity to express themselves physically and discover the joy that only play can bring.
In Early Childhood Movement & Dance, children explore the concepts of space, time, energy, and relationships through creative movement, developing personal expression, self-confidence, and critical thinking. Students build their young choreographic and artistic voices. The curriculum provides opportunities for students to engage with dances from multiple cultures, styles, and genres in developmentally and culturally appropriate experiences. In creative dance, children learn to work collaboratively and respectfully with others, as well as to challenge themselves.

Lower Schoolers regularly come together as a division, and quite often join the middle school and high school for all-LREI gatherings. Every month, the fours through fourth graders participate in a Lower School Gathering during which the grades share around a specific theme, such as gratitude, families, Black History Month, and Earth Day. Gatherings are hosted by a rotating group of fourth graders who meet with the lower school principal throughout the prior week to plan the assembly.

At LREI, sixth through twelfth graders are paired as Big Buddies with the Fours through fifth graders. Several times per year, Big and Little Buddies get together to cook, read books, attend an assembly, create arts and crafts projects, or participate in community service. LREI students cherish these special relationships. As Big and Little Buddies pass each other in the halls, hugs and waves are often exchanged, and bonds have been established that span the years children grow through the Lower School.

At LREI, lunch is more than just a meal; it's a time and place for continued learning and reinforcement of core values. Lunch is a time to explore new foods, to find comfort in old favorites, and to connect with others over a shared meal. Students in the early childhood classes eat lunch in their classrooms and practice the skills of setting up for meals, sharing with others, "taking a brave taste", and cleaning up at the end of the meal. Students in grades 2 through 8 eat family-style in the cafeteria. This shared social experience builds upon the early childhood experiences and skills, allowing for greater independence as students grow older.

LREI's approach to technology is differentiated to support the developmental needs of our Lower School students. Students in the early childhood grades make minimal use of technology, as we believe that direct experience with the world, unmediated by technology, is essential for their development. Designing with open-ended materials challenges students to develop crucial skills, including trial and error, experimentation, and persistence, that lead to creative and innovative work with technology, such as designing and coding robots, in later grades and beyond.
In third and fourth grade, teachers make more explicit use of our classroom technology, modeling and supporting students' initial explorations into how technology can support and enrich their learning. Students learn with a variety of devices and software tools that they use for media creation, productivity, computational thinking, coding, design, presentation, collaboration, and the development of research skills. Through these experiences, students come to understand not only what responsible use and digital citizenship mean, but also actively practice them as extensions of our mission.